Just focus on the cognac cocktails: if you can still say it, you've not had enough

And the Cape Town opening is upon me. Inevitably - or almost - the day dawns beautifully bright, hot, sunny. Another gorgeous day in Cape Town. As evening approaches (another warm, gorgeous evening, of course) I realise that I've not seen my dressing room, so when we get to the theatre on the opening night I ask Franky to take me to it. It's past the enormous stage onto which the more bijou Arena theatre backs, down lots of stairs, along a corridor.... past some signs about the under stage passage, and through a locked door for which it takes Franky a while to find the key. My dressing room is enormous and, having got the bottom of how to turn on the lights, he leaves me there.
Being left in this enormous room on my own in the bowels of Artscape is not the best thing for my nerves, which have already had a bit of a twang when we talked past the folk setting up for the After Tears drinks which have been laid on by our sponsors, Bisquit Cognac. Yes, our opening night is being sponsored by a drinks company thanks to Mark, my sister's best friend, the man with whom I am staying and one of the reasons we felt we could do this tour at all. There is an array of cocktails, cognac cocktails! They look blinking marvellous... but they are are not for now... not for me anyway.
Mark suggested the After Tears theme for the party. It's a township, thing, apparently, to have a proper do after a funeral and it's called After Tears. I like the idea. I especially like the idea that one's tears might abate after the funeral. And so he, together with our producer Anna, have organised it all. I'm so used to Martin an me doing everything ourselves, it feels decadent and slightly scary that it's all happening and all I've really done is approve things as we've gone along.
There can often be an inheritance when someone dies, money being the most popular inherited thing, I guess, but also mementos, pets, things you didn't know while the person was alive (for example, that your youngest brother is in fact your nephew) and all kinds of what Nigerians call wahala: trouble. I've inherited lots from my sister, from money to underwear via furniture and wahala. It didn't occur to me that I might inherit people, but I have, and the jewel in the crown of these people has to be Mark. I've known him all my life - he had to sit in the car park when his mother came to visit my mother and the brand new me at the hospital - an experience that scarred him I think, as that is how he explains how he knows me to people.
We got on okay, but there was an edge to our friendship. And it was always mediated through Kate. My sister was many wonderful things but she was a rather jealous person and so I was pretty circumspect about getting too close to any of her friends, and Mark was always very special to her.
Mark, who lives in Cape Town these days, traveled to Johannesburg the day after Kate was killed and got to Mum before Charlie and I did. And I was so grateful that of all the people she was was with, Mark was there, and so quickly. Mum tells entertaining stories about Mark as a little boy. All I'll say here is that he was very talkative, you will have to apply under separate cover for further details.
He and I have a level of friendship which simply did not exist before Kate died and I am delighted and devastated by it: however much I appreciate him and his fella Ikeraam, their kindness, their amazing generosity in general and over this tour, I would give it all back to return to the days when Kate and Mark were best mates and I was just her little sister, steering clear so's not to wind her up.
So we have a big opening gala night tonight, journalists, friends, theatre people, people from consulates, some of the great and the good of Cape Town. I do feel slightly calmer out of my enormo-dressing room and warming up in the space - my space for this week. At the back of the stage, though, there is the door which goes down the fire escape, which leads to the gate, which takes you out of the complex, onto the road and away from all of this. I look at the door, it's inviting evening light gently grinning at me like a benign drug dealer, and I contemplate running away. Not for long, but the thought strikes me that I could.
But it's twenty minutes before showtime and I head down the stairs to meet people, to start the pre-show, and to make that important decision about which cocktail would be the best starting point for me in about an hour and a half.